GammaRae

I hear a lot of sighs of relief coming from MI. Still happy with the way things turned out for me, but also happy for Ford this isn't going to be as catastrophic as it could have been. I want Ford to succeed. It's important to us all.

I'm loving it. Should have driven it instead of the Jetta in the summer. It suits me very well. Again, the exterior is not as sexy as the Fusion, but it's much better in person than the marketing photos, IMO. The interior is as practical and functional as you'd expect from a German car and it is definitely quite a step-up from the older VWs. First 20.7 mile run down the interstate (including getting on and off) netted exactly 45.0 mpg and in these parts we do not have long, flat straight highways. It's up, down and around. So yeah, not nearly as disappointed with going in this direction as I would have thought a month ago. Very happy with it. And this is not in anyway meant to demean the Fusion one bit. The VW TDI isn't for everyone.

Just wanted to say thanks for the service you've provided. It's quite a selfless act you do for nothing to provide us all with information our dealers normally can't or refuse to get. I'm out of the Fusion market. So no more requests for this one. Cheers!

Good luck everyone with your Fusions. I'm out. TDI it is.

I own a VW now. I've owned two others. My current VW is the least favorite of them all and why I looked elsewhere. I was excited to give Ford a shot with this tremendously stylish and handsome vehicle. Here's the problem - I can't get it and the engine I wanted has had way too many problems. I know what I'm getting into with the Passat. Your plain comment is valid and understandable - I looked shortly at them before ordering my FF, but what you see as plain others view as practical and functional. As well, it wasn't nearly as plain as I expected it to be. The exterior certainly isn't as sexy, but it makes up in other ways. Pretty sure I'd be going with an SE w/Sunroof (no Nav). I don't need that crap. Just more stuff to go wrong and I would never use it. The interior additions to the SEL are nice, but eh. Not worth the extra $4000 to me. The 40,000 service doesn't bother me in the least and neither does putting cat piss in it. We're actually dealing with the urea issue on our large marine engines and the EPA regs, so it's not a new subject. Re DSG: It is smooth and sport mode was fun. Didn't play with the tiptronic at all, but I'm sure it's very similar to all the others.

My Etis updated on a Tuesday, so don't think there's a specific day. Also, I test drove a Passat TDI, tonight. Was way more impressed with it than the Jetta TDI and it's moving towards the top of the list quickly. It was fun to drive, has plenty of torque, plenty of room (holy crap that backseat is roomy) and it of course comes with that economical TDI. I'll still be disappointed if this is the direction I have to take, but won't be as disappointed. *Added: The DSG automatic is quite nice, too.

You're killin' me here.

One dealer I spoke to today said Enterprise had pulled back all of their cars from the local auction(s) to handle the load.

Trust me, he's involved. Whether he acts or is able to is still yet to be determined. This just happened to one of my fleet F150s we took in a couple weeks ago for service. They didn't add enough oil. It was 2 quarts short. Luckily, my guy caught it before leaving the dealership because the tire was flat when they gave it to him so he decided to do a walk through and check everything else. It computed with his original explanation.

Yeah, I understood that part completely. I'm just putting it in context of my specific situation where I have asked my dealer and Ford to basically reorder my 1.6 (which is built) as a 2.0 with a higher priority than 10 to get something done soon. That's all.

I could have. If I'm understanding you correctly, they can allocate one of the 2.0s already in the sequence to an emergency order instead of it fulfilling for dealer stock as it was originally scheduled? How would that effect VINs?

Yes, that all occurred to me as a possibility. The only thing that left doubt was the lack of an Outstanding Field Service Action listed for specific VINs built on 11/30 and beyond. We'll see if I can get a high priority 2.0 built, but I'm guessing based on the above description of production it would take an act of God to get one thrown into the sequence out of order.

Seems counterproductive, right? I'm certainly not going to say what they're doing one way or another since I'm nowhere near the inside of Ford, but how they could continue pushing them through without a known cause and fix doesn't compute with me. Perhaps they are pushing them through with corrective action (thus why 11/30 and later build vehicle do not have OFSAs) and that nothing short of replacing one or more major component (including the engine) is the answer for the recalled vehicles. If that is the case, the logistics of providing 90,000+ additional engines than you expected, in a relatively short period no less, would be mind boggling and announcing that without having an actual plan and ability to do so would cause panic amongst owners. That's all speculation, of course, and not very good speculation at that.

"...Deep says that the plant is continuing to build Escapes with the 1.6-liter EcoBoost (it has two other engine options) even though the cause of the fires has yet to be pinpointed and a fix devised." http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2012/12/04/ford-investigating-europe-engines/1747029/

Allied is the vehicle transport company being used by Ford.